Two Eggers!

Pippi and Lulu are both laying every day now! Pippi goes first and is very noisy about it, and Lulu is very quiet about it.


Pippi's first egg:


And there have also been a couple of double yolks from Lulu.





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Backyard Chickens

Everything is done, just waiting for the eggs now!













Chicken tractor - two parts to move around and fit between the raised veggie beds.





Hanging watering system - with poultry water nipples:

Upgrades and Add-ons

The chickens are still getting the extra-special treatment around here. They are so spoiled, I sure hope they appreciate it!

First of all, we upgraded their watering system. While I love the way the old-fashioned galvanized farm ones look, they are awful. Always dirty and a pain to clean and fill. Plus, they take up valuable floor space. SO, we fixed that:

Some PVC pipe, caps, poultry water nipples... which can be found here: Push in water nipples - you can also get screw in ones.









All done!



We made a smaller one for inside the coop too:



And! We began the chicken tractor. Half of it is done. It's a two part modular model. One part transportation unit, one part dockable foraging station. The foraging part fits in between my raised beds - and this is the part that is done:



The other half needs a roof and a handle, it's almost done. Pictures soon.

Oh, and one more - a cool vintage find I scored on Etsy:



Ok, so I'm a little spoiled too, how did I get so obsessed with chickens? Did you know you can even get chicken decals to put on the back of your car windows... you know, like the kind for your family and all your pets? Yeah, I know, that's probably taking things a little too far... even for me.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Slowly, if you live in my neck of the woods. But still, there's tiny fruits to be seen. Little promises of summer goodness. Plus, we are finally eating lettuce from the garden. Love garden fresh lettuce, pretty much spoils you to what's in the grocery stores the rest of the year.

Tomatoes:





Peppers:



Strawberries:



And of course a future egg-layer:

Gardens and Chickens

I'm tired. We've done a lot this spring, and things are looking pretty good, mostly... and we are not done yet. But I think it's caught up to me and now I need a break from it all. I need to melt some glass soon or I'm going to go crazy. You too? Sick of chickens and gardens? Oh well, that's all I have right now. Glass soon. I have date with it next Tuesday afternoon for sure... but first my knuckle has to heal up from what I did to it on the edge of the compost bin this morning... that wasn't pretty - always wear your gardening gloves, you never know when you'll wish you had!

Garden Time!

Well, that was fun. The chicken coop, I mean. I'm so glad so many of you enjoyed watching along - though I'm sorry it took so long! But it's done now... and things are quite... quiet out there. The chickies are really too easy now, I just open the door in the morning and let them out, put out some food and fresh water and walk away. Later on in the day I pull up some grass and weeds and toss them in the run for them to play with and eat. Later on I freshen up their bedding in the coop (takes less than 2 minutes) and make sure they have enough food and water in there... and then around 7 or 8 they just put themselves to bed and I go shut the door... and freshen up their run, which takes 5 to 10 minutes and is not so fun, I'll admit. I need to figure out how to make that part better.... a long handled kitty litter scoop? Maybe. But really, all in all too easy and not very exciting. Though I love having chickens in my back yard! Perhaps I need to get started on that chicken tractor so I can chase the chickens around the yard and try to tell them where they are supposed to be? Hmn... that sounds exciting! Maybe in a few weeks. I've got gardening to do first.

It's my favorite time in my yard, just about everything is in bloom right now, and I've been weeding like crazy. I'll never get it all done, I know, but I think I'm the closest I've been any spring so far. Luke is even learning to mow! Garden bed borders are getting moved around, some plants I haven't been loving are being removed, new things planted... flowers and shrubs, yes, but also lettuce, green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, strawberries all growing. My spinach keeps failing me and I'm not sure about this burying the potato stems thing yet... I don't think there is enough dirt in the world to keep up with how fast those guys are growing. I'm thinking about a fence around my garden and a blueberry hedge. And I need to cover the strawberries so the birds don't get them before I do this year. So much to do!